Marriage: God's plan of love to live, not an injustice to remedy For Christians, marriage is a sacrament: a sacrament which enriches spouses and their families and contributes to the greater good of the whole community. In recent years the very idea of marriage has become a subject of contention and controversy in our society. Voices have been raised to say that marriage does not belong to any religious group. We would, of course, be the first to agree: for marriage belongs to humanity. We recognise marriage not as a social convention to be made or re-made by successive generations... Read more
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Articles Under: Articles from Bishops
Bishop Monforton reflects on the theme for Catechetical Sunday in the US: Teaching about God’s Forgiveness. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. These words from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:17-18) illustrate the fact that Jesus is the one who forgives. While reconciling us to himself, Jesus has in turn provided us with the very ministry of reconciliation. In doing so, the Church becomes... Read more
As a preacher and teacher of the faith, there is none better than the late Pope John Paul II. His spoken and written words on the entire spectrum of Catholic doctrine fill many volumes. John Paul was seen and heard by more people throughout the world than St. Paul and all twelve apostles together. He spoke in language that ranged from the sophisticated cadence of encyclical letters to the folksy language of general audiences. In his four volumes on The Creed he offers the following thoughts for the benefit of all who teach Christian doctrine. We see from the Gospels... Read more
On January 16, 2013 Archbishop Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, wrote the following reflection on Fides per Doctrinam , Faith through Teaching, issued motu proprio . This English translation was made available through the Vatican’s Year of Faith website. Pope Benedict XVI, in his homily at the inaugural Mass of the recent Synod of Bishops, affirmed that the New Evangelization become part of the ordinary pastoral activity of the Church with the aim of awakening in every baptized person the awareness of being a bearer of the Gospel. For this to occur, there needs... Read more
Pope Francis incenses the altar at Mass in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican on Catechists’ Day. Catechists from all over the world convened in Rome for their pilgrimage on the occasion of the Year of the Faith and the International Conference on Catechesis. Here for our readers is the Vatican’s English translation of the Holy Father’s homily. 1. “Woe to the complacent in Zion, to those who feel secure … lying upon beds of ivory!” ( Am 6:1,4). They eat, they drink, they sing, they play and they care nothing about other people’s troubles. These are harsh words which... Read more
‘At the heart of catechesis, we find in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus Christ. The definitive aim of catechesis is to introduce people to an intimate friendship with Jesus Christ. Only He can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Trinity.’ In Catechesi Tradendae, Blessed Pope John Paul II stresses the centrality of Christ and establishes the essential link between evangelization and catechesis. There is no separation or opposition between catechesis and evangelization. They integrate and complement each other. Catechesis must often concern itself not... Read more
An Enchiridion of texts for the New Evangelisation has been prepared by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization. Here we present the introduction to this invaluable collection by Archbishop Rino Fisichella (Vatican City, 29 th June 2012). When, on the 9 th June 1979, at the sanctuary of Mogila in Nowa Huta, Blessed John Paul II used the expression “new evangelization” for the first time, he may not have foreseen the great movement that would be set in motion. Before the Cross that signified the first blossoming of Christianity in those lands, his heart whispered these... Read more
Blessed John Henry Newman was a man with a vision for the battles of our times. He fought with courage, and he calls us to take up the fight today, confident in our ultimate victory. The Saints and Blessed ones have, throughout England’s history, spoken a word of encouragement and hope to successive generations. Like those “witnesses in a great cloud on every side of us,” [i] of which the Letter to the Hebrews speaks, the witnesses of the saints from every corner of this land and beyond have urged us towards that victory which faith assures. From those first... Read more
‘This Church is full of sinners, and there is always room for one more’: so reads the poster outside a Baptist church. The same could be said - although understood rather differently - of any Catholic community, from the smallest parish to the worldwide Church. There have certainly been hypocrites, crackpots and downright nasty people in the Church, and there still are. People criticise Church wealth, leaders whose lives contradict what they preach, support for oppressive regimes, a failure to love. Church members are often no better than other people. Scandalous things have been done. The Church was, and is,... Read more
I am delighted to have this opportunity to give an account of the work of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) as we move towards the implementation of the translation of the third typical edition of the Missale Romanum , the Latin text of which was issued by the Holy See in 2002 and amended in 2008. In this article I would like to explain the principles of translation that underpin the new Missal in English, and explore some of the catechetical implications facing us as we begin to celebrate the Mass using this translation. ICEL and... Read more